Sobbing Havok's Last Limbo
by Quillon42
Summary: When N'Astrih and other demons grow impatient with the Goblin Queen Madelyne Pryor's games during Inferno, they find a loophole that involves their Lady taking the place of the mutant babies targeted for sacrifice. But for one lovelorn younger Summers...that Havok's just not havin' it.
1. Chapter 1

SOBBING HAVOK'S LAST LIMBO

By Quillon42

CHAPTER ONE

SOMETIME IN 1988 IN MANHATTAN

The view from this landing of the Empire State Building, Alex decided, was a mite more pleasant back when it was around on Floor Ninety and was maintained at least seemingly by human beings.

Even in the wickedly warm arms of his lover Madel…er, his Majesty the Goblin Queen, the younger Summers had to admit that the tableau set before him was a tad bit offputting, given the fact that the roof of the superstructure was literally raised to one hundred thirteen…

…and the tune, it was no longer called by the conductor of a Rainbow Room orchestra, as Alex and his Queen enjoyed during that devilish date a little while back…but now, rather, by a horselike crimson demon that came on as if he were Equestria's worst incubus.

Worse yet, the comely cerise-locked lady in Alex's embrace seemed not at all fazed by the evilization that permeated the isle of Manhattan. He looked to her; searched for the Madelyne Pryor he had known so briefly yet so intensely in those emerald irises, now encased by eyelids oversaturated with viridian eyeshadow; found a woman who was exceedingly beyond the seductress who subdued him with so many lustful fancies.

Across from the libidinous duo, the aforementioned equine archvile, known as N'Astrih…he voiced his concerns to the rufescent regent in Alex's arms.

However, the heinous horsey's harangue was lost on the impetuous, impulsive, temperamental young X-Man. Even though Alex was one of the original walk-ons to the team, alongside the kelly-locked lass Lorna Dane (alias Polaris; at this time indisposed by way of possession through a lascivious lamia named Malice)—yea, even though Alex was one of the first second-stringers beyond the initial five, he still at this point in time had a greenness to him intenser than Lady Lorna's jade irises or follicles.

Really, Alex should have been as seasoned as his older brother Scott by now, should have had the savvy to not even let his lustful feelings lead them as astray as they had thus far.

But Madelyne…this crimson-maned, emerald-eyed temptation had proven far too great for anyone other than a hero of the Golden Age to resist. With her blood-bright red hair and piercing pupils encircled by jade, the woman could be easily mistaken for Scotty's alive-again, a-dead-again girl Jean Grey. And one would be completely justified in such an error, as Miss Pryor was in fact, as she found recently to her corruptive chagrin, a clone of said redhead.

In truth, Alex had thought about Jean in "that way" from time to time. But the indisputable spoken-for-ness of the First Female Mutant of the Machine, the taken-ness by way of Scott that overshadowed Dame Grey…the knowledge of it always ultimately caused that unspoken area of Alex Summers to contract consummately.

The young mutant was used to the Scottblock by the time Madelyne Pryor had along; even though he was best man at his older brother's wedding, and thus stood then in as close proximity to the titian temptress that was Madelyne as he did right now, on this lofty landing atop this Empire Taint…during that marital ceremony Alex played the man of moral fiber, and he never entertained any ideas along the lines of, say, the third verse of Young MC's song and video "Bust a Move." (Nevermind). Indeed, though, Alex checked his libido, kept it in check, back then.

Now that circumstances whirled around, though, just as in that dream he had…with Madelyne in her wedding dress, and Scott abandoning her at the dance…and Alex in turn decked out in some weird-ass square-dance duds, and he backing into said red lady…at that point, in that dream, as in this nightmarish reality now, they held one another, held onto one another, embraced each other against the turmoil to come in the dizzying days and the vicious evenings ahead.

Alex continued to look lovingly, lustfully, at his Queen now. In her sapphire-cloaked quasi-clothing, she honestly wasn't wearing much more than the sneer she was leveling now at N'Astrih, a look backed up by sharp-tongued retorts…

…and it all fell upon seduction-deafened ears as far as Alex was concerned. Right there, in his arms, Madelyne was so beautiful. So stunning when serene, and so lovely when livid. The way her flesh grew so flush, as her face grew more and more insane with ire, it really turned Baby Brother Summers on, so much. Her yelling at the moment went unheard by Alex, a mute button within the mutant activated by the arousal he felt at beholding his lady.

Perhaps he could get his Queen to channel that anger into a most pushing, pummeling of passions in their unholy bed in the back of the transformed ReignBaal Room…he imagined his Majesty now, she shedding the rest of her azure shawl, she shredding at the remains of the tatters that once comprised Havok's onyx suit, she slipping her hands down…

…down and away from him, somewhat like the way the horrible, horned demons divested the woman grimly from Alex's grip right now.

As the entranced young man, still bewildered at the sight of his Madelyne being made off by N'Astrih towards an open portal…as he tried to gather his hands together for a plasma burst, he found himself held down of a sudden by two goblins, one on each side, each of whom was once a proud parent of Jean Grey but now transformed in a most unholy fashion.

Alex could only but attempt to listen, through the harsh hands of the ex-Greys, as the horse-sorceror addressed his former regent:

"I told you, Milady, that we only had so much time. For the execution of the spell upon the infant children, to release all the demons upon the Earth, time was of the most…effervescent essence."

While the demon drew his Queen screaming, helplessly towards the portal, N'Astrih again: "But no—you couldn't be bothered to listen. Just had to waste precious hours lording it over these…Idiots of the Atom, down on the ground. Well, I'm not going to let you ruin this for me.

"_Centuries_ I've waited, for this opportunity. If I have to _take back_ the power I imbued within you, to get where I have to be with this—then all well and good."

The devilish equine imp was almost to the interdimensional gate. "It's just a good thing after all my demon deputy Crotus, just now, he reported to me that he found that loophole. Just think of all the time we would have saved, though, if we had known from the beginning, upon researching just a tiny bit more into the lore, that _the womb of a mutant baby's mother_ is worth as much as the bodies of thirteen mutant babies…I'd have sacrificed you from the beginning, rather than conscripted you into my conspiracy…"

N'Astrih began to lumber his lobster-hued form into the portal. As the now-depowered Queen of Goblins grabbed at anything to keep from following, she yelled to her loyal subject:

"No…NO! My Goblin Prince…to ME!"

As her legs were forced into the glow-glaring gate, and as Alex gritted and gnashed his teeth, his Majesty again: "My…Prinnnnn…ce!"

As only her scarlet-scalped head was now in view, her form about to evaporate entirely into the ethereal otherplace…

"ALEX!"

"Madelyne…NO!"

[ZZZZZZZZZZAAAAARRRRRKKKKK]

By now Alex had summoned enough inner energies to generate enough of a plasma aura to shrug off the Goblin-Greys who held him fast. Said Greys were not seriously harmed by the reaction; they were cowed for certain, yet still conscious in their state of defeat to hear the shouts of a wayward Summers consumed by lust as he dove headfirst through the horsehead's portal, just as it closed for good:

"I'M COMING FOR YOU, LADY…"

TO BE CONTINUED


	2. Chapter 2

(NB: As with similar futile efforts at love scenes (or at least lust scenes) in The Penultimate Polka, here I try to stoke as much prurient passion as possible between Alex and Madelyne. Please feel free to laugh wholeheartedly at the descriptive trysts towards the end of this passage, if it seems I'm trying too hard, and/or it comes off as too goofy).

SOBBING HAVOK'S LAST LIMBO

By Quillon42

CHAPTER TWO

What had impressed upon the more reckless of the Summers brothers most, upon his alighting into this forbidden area of abomination between worlds, was the sharp starkness of it all. There were no streets in Limbo, transformed into streams of sulphur by Inferno; there were no skyscrapers in Limbo, transmogrified into obelisks of iniquity, by Inferno.

All that there was, before the straggling Ghost of Roma's Otherworld that was Alexander Summers…was an expanse of whirling wastes and coarse crags, of whipping winds and puce skies…

…and, just now as the young man noted on the outermost verge of his peripheral vision…a gigantic garnet ghast carrying off his henna-haired hostage, who was also, of late, Havok's Highness.

Thoughts of all of what Madelyne meant to Alex…the fancies pulsed, pounded through his mind as he sprinted in pursuit, cantered after the couple before him. Ahead, it looked as if N'Astirh were tensing his trunky thighs for either a bound up into the air or for wickedly winged flight. If that thing managed to take off with the Majesty in tow, it would be certain, the X-Man knew, that he would never see his Lady again.

He stopped there in his tracks, tensing for another plasma blast. Alex would risk a shot now, even regardless of the danger inherent to Madelyne in the endeavor. The brasher Summers just couldn't allow this to occur, couldn't let this leviathan have his way with his woman, couldn't leave his Queen to such an unspeakable fate. As he raised his fists together and charged up his inner mutant energies, the hero looked ahead to his target…

…and paused as

[NEEEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGHHHHHH]

he noted his rosy regent stamping down with her booted foot upon her captor's hoof, catching N'Astirh unawares and halting the entity midgallop. Alex couldn't quite make out what Mads was shouting at the demon, but he was sure she was giving the entity more hell than all of the Inferno in the Big Apple.

It was the case, in fact, that Maddy was giving N'Astirh quite a piece of her telepath-mimeographed mind—without the slightest hint of fear whatsoever, even despite the lack of her energies born from iniquity. "Sorry, N'Asty," she said, giving the giant another boot in the shins, "Even without my powers…I'm still the damn Goblin Queen…not the Nintendo Ghosts N' Goblins Princess. Much as you'd like to carry me off to some primeval citadel, you ain't playin' that role tonight."

In the ensuing seconds, as Alex neared closer to the two, blasting a few small intervening demons in his way, N'Astirh—the demon reaching for his queenly quarry with evilly-infected tensors: "Woman…with the technological pathogen within me that is the Transmode Virus…I seek not to make you play the role of an NES character…but rather have you BECOME THE NES ITSELF!"

"NOOOOO!"

[ZZZZZZAAAAAARRRRRRKKKKKKKKK]

The yell of the younger Summers was punctuated by a plasma projection that punched through the space between two accursed conversants ahead of him.

"From the looks of it," said Madelyne wryly, as she backed confidently away from Havok's daemonic target, and surveyed her scantily-clad savior up and down, "it would appear that my underwear-flaunting Arthur has arrived…"

Alex ran up to stand by his lover, gave the lady a furrowed brow at her sardonic Capcom-referencing comment, then lined up with his hands to focus another shot upon N'Astirh. "The denizens of Hell will never prevail," he screamed with all the boldness he could muster, "when there's someone around to…CRY HAVOK!"

[ZZZZZZAAAAAARRRRRRKKKKKKKKK]

Then the hero couldn't tell which bothered him more, an instant following: the chortles and threats of the absconding demonlord before him, as the arch-enemy lifted himself into the sky to dodge the plasma burst and vault himself away…

…or the seeming snicker which issued just behind the X-Man, right after he delivered his old-school signature line.

Alex whirled around a second later to see if his Madelyne was alright…and was just a bit nonplussed to note his mistress with lips curled up and eyes slanted in derision.

She shook her pretty head in disbelief at the man; then: "Really? Are you effing serious?"

The hero blinked, sans understanding.

"'Cry Havok'? That's, like, your thing? That's what you go and say when…"

Alex threw his hands to his face, in supreme frustration. "Madelyne, I…"

"Just shush, you delectable douche."

The man's emotions surged from embarrassed to euphoric as he found his lady's lips suddenly smothering his own, her half-nude form cramming in against his own semi-naked frame. She draped her navy-blue sleeves around the top of his back, drawing him in close as she purred into his ear.

"Good work, my handsome, loyal Prince…

"Now how in this very hell are we going to get out of here?"

As it would turn out, Alex would never come up with an answer to the query.

He would, however, find a way to warm the both of them, when Limbo's dusk lapsed to all-out night.

Indeed, hours later, after the vicious winds of the nether dimension died down considerably…the two of them lay resting near to one another, marshaling strength by way of a small impromptu fire Summers started by way of some of the solar-fueled plasma power he still had in reserve, by way of Lady Pryor's own residual Goblin abilities.

"Much as N'Astirh would like to believe it…he didn't drain me totally dry."

At Madelyne's comment here Alex, supine on the rugged ground alongside, nodded tiredly.

"Where do you think he went off to, anyway, with his cackling Transmodey carcass?"

Maddy sighed wistfully, almost drowsily. "Who the eff knows…"

And she earned her exhaustion, much more than anyone else that evening. After all the rage she expended upon Scott and Jean earlier in the day…after all the months of meticulous manipulation she perpetrated upon the Outbackers…the totality of it tanked, fell apart thanks to that pony/devil progeny that was N'Astirh.

"I've just been…just been so insanely infuriated with everyone of late," she said, as she turned on her side to face Alex. He did the same in response, to face her per se, and also to watch the glow of flames reflecting off her flawless features.

"It all started with Scott _ditching_ me and Nathan Christopher, in Anchorage…then I fly over to San Fran, on what I think is a moneymaking milk run…and I almost get _slaughtered,_ on more than one occasion, by those Marauding asswipes…"

Havok continued to watch the firelight shining in Madelyne's eyes, mistook it for moisture.

Didn't realize that he had some water works of his own, welling up in his eyes, as he listened to this woman whom he lusted for, yes…but whom he also genuinely cared for, venting her frustration.

"Then, I get manipulated by more than one unholy entity…not only N'Astirh, but this other purple effer named S'ym—the one who twisted me, distorted me, _really_ made me what I was, out there in Inferno…"

She was looking out into the ever-darkening lavender distance of Limbo nighttime now, not minding her companion as he looked upon her face with his lachrymose-liquid eyes.

"And then, let me tell you…there's this total dick named Sinister, whom I don't think you and the other Xes met…well I met him, and it turns out that _all_ my life, from first to last, it's a total lie…"

It was at "lie" that Madelyne focused her gaze back upon Alex, noticed the tears flowing from his eyes. She was about to explain the confrontation with the miserably-named Mister whose revelations ruined the rest of whatever her life had been to her…

…but Alex's sudden reaching over, then rubbing the top of her back with quivering hands, then crushing her to him, chest to chest, obviated any need for elaboration.

"You're not alone, Madelyne," Alex whispered, softly through his sniffling and into the lady's ear. "I hear you…about the thugs…about the devils…

"…about my brother.

"And I'm here, to tell you…to assure you…you have someone here…who genuinely cares for you…who won't hurt you, or use you, or abandon you."

A pause weighty with Alex's words stood in the nether-night's air. When the man drew back to look into his lady's eyes, he found instead her eyelids shut tight and her lips spread wide for her tongue to tryst with his.

A minute later, Maddy was the one to draw back. She raised an eyebrow, then chuckled a little, at the streaks of sadness that dampened Alex's cheeks. "Is this 'Cry Havok' at its best?" she offered playfully, then pressing pursed lips again to a corner of the man's mouth. "My Goblin Prince, he's but a Sobbing Summers now…?"

Alex had to stop to clear his throat a second. Then: "I can't…I can't help but tear up, at what you said you've gone through…

"It's just…all that I can say is…you have a strength to you, Madelyne, which puts that of everyone you've ever known, good or bad, to shame. …And you know what? You're the better for it. Really. After all this, you're an even stronger person for it."

The Queen found that it was now her turn to draw close and hold her subject hard against herself. "I…I agree, Alex. You know, it's like…anger ruled me, for so long…from Scott, to the Outback, to Genosha and all…

"…I feel that, had I gone on with my plans, this past evening, in Manhattan…I would have wasted myself with all the rage. Really; I'd have taken a stroke in the course of some strung-out energy blast against the Outbackers and the fucker 'Factor' that, that bullshit…dipshit Scott and ass-sucker Jean are a part of. In a way, by siphoning all that out of me…N'Astirh might have even done me a favor, just now, atop the ESB."

A tender torso squeeze from Alex marked assent regarding this thought.

Madelyne, moreover in Alex's arms, a minute later:

"I still want to kill them both, though."

"Maddy…I mean this with all due respect…and love, for you…I just…I just don't think that Scott and Jean are to be…"

"No, no, Alex…I was talking about the two demonic dealmakers who chewed me up and spit me out of their schemes. I swear, my Prince…those shitheads S'ym and N'Astirh are gonna eat it, enormous time, if I have my way here. That horse on hind legs wants to laugh, and threaten revenge…let him and that oversized prune piece of fuck come back for us. I'll give 'em what for, and then some."

At this juncture, Havok could tell that the Mads' madness had totally flown, and that whenever she addressed him as her "Prince" it was all in jest.

As if to reinforce what he was thinking just at the moment, Miss Pryor: "They wanted me to be their Queen. Well, I'm abdicating the throne…

"…but not before I give my unholy Court advisors what for…and send them out from Limbo, all the way down to Hell."

These words were met by a smile from Alex, then another embrace partially supportive, partially amorous from the man.

Madelyne nipped at Alex's ass with naughty forefingers as he caressed her own luscious, bared nether cheeks with hungering hands. "Come, my little Sobgoblin," she said lustily. "Show me if you can 'Cry Havok' from parts of your body other than your hands."

Just feet from the flickering flames, Alex and Maddy then had at each other even more heartily than they did in that apartment in Australia, that one evening months back. The man drew his woman in with lips that starved once more for her kiss, and she met him readily with a tongue raring to tumble with his own once again.

In the ensuing hours, Havok and his Majesty each with completely uncaring abandon tore the other's scraps of clothing even more to shreds, such that Summers, for one, became but flesh down to the waist, and only bits of black spandex besides. His aroused mistress allowed him to slip off the semblance of scratched-up obsidian shorts, so he could salvage some sort of apparel in the morning.

In turn, Alex with slavering jaws chomped at the chrome brooch between his lady's rosy breasts, tore the trinket from her chest, and gently laid it at her side with his teeth like the most loyal of lapdogs. He then nudged aside the fine threads of fabric that folded over the bounty of his Queen's bosoms, replacing the scant cloth there with repeated salivating mouthings from quavering lips intermittently until a couple hours before Limbo's dawn. Between these careful kissings, the Prince even more cautiously removed his lady's tatter-demolished girdle, and set it beside her with passion-pulsating hands. He then threw said caution to the underworld winds by tearing at his Majesty's shawl with fingers curled with concupiscent desire, then smothered her figure with his own, his exposed chest pressed to her bared breasts, his denuded legs tangling with her naked rose-pink thighs, their intimate members melding in much the same manner.

All of this was, in truth, leagues more of a release for either of them than anything they ever experienced with one another before, from the Apple to the Outback.

Perhaps what drove their passions this night was, if for nothing else, the possibility that the morrow would bring their last moments on any plane of existence…as Madelyne and Alex both knew that the aforementioned maroon and mauve monstrosities that were N'Astirh and S'ym, they would not have an audience with Queen and Prince in the morning without a hopelessly massive murder of reinforcements backing up those entities most Infernal.

TO BE CONCLUDED


	3. Chapter 3

SOBBING HAVOK'S LAST LIMBO

By Quillon42

CHAPTER THREE

What passed for morning now made itself reckoned in Limbo, that haunting hinterlands beyond the Machine's Manhattan. On the floor of this no-person's-wasteland, one reckless man known Summers awakened groggily, and looked upon his captivating cohort—a woman also known as Summers…at least technically.

Neither really wanted to think about names at the moment, in any case, as they had each put his or her own self through a royal wringer (literally royal) in calling themselves perverse put-ons of Prince and Queen, did Alex and Madelyne, respectively. And after all they'd been through these past several months, all culminating with the most deliciously devilish of Infernos, from which they were each delivered impromptu, by this latest alternate-reality episode…they were exhausted and embarrassed enough from it all upon recovering their senses such that they could easily do with just calling one another "Yo" at this point.

None of it, though, could ever stop Alex from loving Maddy—and from looking upon her so lovingly, either. The adventurer in ebony undershorts (as of now) could not help but gaze upon his lady, apparently still sleeping with shallow breaths, yet so tranquilly; the man recalling the passions of the evening previous, his blood and other parts of him firing at viewing his Queen's flesh so aflush during their lovemaking; he now growing so carnal upon seeing her figure lying there, so incarnadine rosy…

"You're completely creeping me the hell out, Alex."

This from a face with eyelids stilly shut and lips pursed peacefully in supposed slumber. The harrier known as Havok then realized that his love was likely monitoring him the whole time, perhaps through some Goblin sense of hers that she still enjoyed.

Before he could consider it too much longer, said love sprang abruptly upright from her state of seeming sleep and punched the man's shoulder playfully. "Gahhh…just breaking your balls. …How's my cute little crybaby doing this morning…" She hugged tenderly the arm with the shoulder she bopped.

"Jus…just trying to figure what the heck we can do now, with our situation."

Alex punctuated this with a stare out into the infinite vista of vacuity that was the dimension that he and Her-Navy-Sleeved-Half-Nakedness had happened upon these past several hours. Havok gaped out upon all of it so hopelessly, the man elated for certain to be here with the lady who ignited his most intense ardors…yet the man also glum for the unholy inevitable which was to visit them soon.

Madelyne, on the other hand—and of all people, given her role and tone in Inferno—decided with this past good night's sleep to turn over a new leaf. She wouldn't exactly resolve to be uppity _Friends_-Phoebe optimistic, but especially given the premonition that through this last turn of events, she narrowly avoided suffering the worst fate imaginable to her, in Manhattan, she would juice as much pleasure out of what might be her last moments as she could.

And though, yes, she was separated from her child Nathan Christopher…whom she honestly loved with all her heart…she was concerned first about leaving this plane of existence, one way or another, then tending to family affairs at another juncture further on.

…All the same, at any rate, regarding seizing the moment and embracing more primordial passions, the lady now was yet a mite bit too exhausted at present, from all the escapades of copulation the evening previous, to engage in anything in that vein just now.

She figured, for the moment, that ribbing/flirting with Alex would be enough. Her Highness pointed to her subject's slightest of improvised undershorts, and snarfed a laugh his way as he was still looking out at Limbo's putrid panorama. "Man, 'Lexy…if it didn't make you feel self-conscious…I'd have blasted off the remains of that tacky black costume 'round your waist, right well."

The Prince turned to his lady with a skeptical look. After a slight pause: "Maddy, I'll have you know, I've been in these duds for full-out combat since, like, the dawning of the Seventies. I thought it was really snazzy—and really original, actually."

Madelyne sniffed at this assertion. "Oh, yeah, really ever so inspired—an all-black re-o-tard capped by what looked like the shredded remains of a ten-speed-bicyclist's helmet, after a life-threatening encounter with the Wendigo. Really makes a lady melt, I'll tell ya."

"It made your nude little rear cuddle up to me rather closely, back in Genosha right before I trashed the Citadel."

The Queen's jaw dropped at her Prince's audacity. She pointed a finger blithely at Alex, as if to blast. "That was _because_ I was nak…you know, I have half a mind to send you to Hell now, before those diddly demons! You know? You _know?!_"

She endstopped this last by leaping across and tackling her love to the ground. Alex and Maddy rolled around and around, finishing their grounded tumble with a breath-snuffing kiss.

As they lay next to one another, each close enough to feel the warmth of the other's flesh, Alex: "Yeah, and what do _you_ have on, Miss Blue-Cloak-Bikini? What're you trying to prove, with all that going on in that little midsection area…

"Which you could never, and can never stop staring at, O Prince Pervy." She sighed, blissfully. "No wonder you weren't paying attention when I was pulled away from you, back on the Empire State Balcony…"

And then she stopped cold with that, as she didn't want to recall crueler events that would bring her mood down.

Alex, meanwhile, kind of continued along with it. "Well, I just didn't want the whole world to bear witness to your blinding sexiness, I suppose. …I will put on the record again, though, that I really liked my costume…till you and your little minions of the underworld had to go and ruin it."

Not wishing to revisit too much of her literal and figurative yesterday as the mad Goblin Queen—and also concerned about preparing as much as she and Alex could for the eventual return of those wretched, demonic nemeses—Madelyne popped up from the ground of a sudden, her interest piqued by a small green-and-red cloud in the distance.

The horny hard-on that was Havok, still piping up from Limbo's floor: "I mean, it was like, you couldn't even let me climb into your hellish carriage, while it was speeding down the length of Manhattan? I had to just…hitch a ride on it, in the most primal way possible…"

Mads noticed to her dismay that the most nonChristmassy red/green cloud was growing slightly larger by the second—heading, of course, straight for them both. Despite her concern, though, she couldn't help but retort, with a mix of focus toward the horizon, and flirtatiousness toward said hard-on:  
>"Look, if you help me get us out of this medievally miserable mess…I'll let you strap me to the roof of your…desert dune buggy, or whatever you use to conduct your geophysical studies or whatever on Earth. Then you can spin around, doing doughnuts and shit in it; and then all my clothes'll fly off. There, would <em>that<em> make you happy?"

Ordinarily the lady, she wouldn't have minded a smart-alexed reply to this…but that nimbus of necromancy within sight was something that made her want to keep this last quirky query quite rhetorical.

It was, in fact, when Madelyne could notice N'Astirh…that most Satanic of stallionesque suckas…at the epicenter of the cloud, that she and her Prince had to get their Gobliny selves on guard.

A half-naked Havok stood at his woman's side, grasped her hand, held it tight as they watched the verdant and vermilion demons shearing the sky, heralding the horse-horror who headed them all up. As the N'Astiest of foes flew closer, hovering hauntingly like a brony-boss, Alex became engulfed with dread…as much as Maddy became enveloped with disappointment.

So it's just this buffoon again…damn. If Alex and I were going to go down today, I was hoping that I could at least face off just once more with S'…

The torrent of thought was cut off abruptly and literally by the slicing of a quite spiritual blade, through the air just meters away from Madelyne. As an impromptu portal began to yawn just before the lady, she realized that it would be the case that N'Astirh's squadron of squeamishness would be complemented rather quickly by an interdimensionally-dropping-in platoon of muscular monsters…

…all headed up by the lavender lardass of Limbo whom she sought out all this time…he now unbelievably wielding the eldritch Soulsword…

"S'ym."

The perditious, pudgy punkass grunted as he gathered himself up, using the flat of the Sword to dust off his leather effects with an arrogant flair upon closing the portal. "Good to see ya again, Miss Pryor," the demon snarked, pulling a sardonic spin on a gentleman's bow a second after making eye contact with the Queen. Before Alex and Madelyne, a horde of about a hundred enemies stood itching to tear the two apart.

The pugnacious plum pansy sniffed, looking Mads up and down quite lewdly before continuing. "For your service to our…Infernal contingency, at least up to a point…we in Limbo have decided to be rather lenient, and allow you to surrender your natty little neck to us without a struggle. We don't want there to be trouble if there ain't any need for it…you understand, of course? You signed on quite willingly to serve our mission, after all, so I'm sure you'd be simpatico with our new schematic…"

Madelyne looked briefly to her lover, gave a curt nod. Then back to S'ym. "You know, you gigantic thistle turd…I won't even bother to make this about me. You know God damn well what happened some time ago, during my dream of the desert, how you…invited me in, to your little games. How I accepted, idiotically. Well, that's behind me…and behind me it will stay.

"No…I want to make it about that giant, soulful _schlong_ that you've got in your grapity, grubby hand there. I've heard tell about who was the one to rightfully wield it—and Illyana, she was a good little girl. To be sure, she was much more capable, in whatever form she took, of dealing with the Sword than you, any day, any eon.

"So why don't I make you an offer, to lay down something that makes far too much up for your shortcomings." Maddy looked at S'ym's leathery waist. "I'll have to say, too…last night I boasted to the fucker 'Factor, with shitbag Scott and jackass Jean, talking about enjoying 'compensations…'"

"But, with the Soulsword, there…you've got the whole 'compensation' market cornered, don't you…"

This was met by a snarl by S'ym—just as, Madelyne:

"Alex, NOW!"

[ZZZZZAAAAARRRRRKKKKKKKKKK]

The plasma bolt took the eggplant-hued enemy by surprise, causing the demon to drop the sword abruptly. Before he could react to this, Madelyne swooped in, striking S'ym square in the face and flooring him with a concussive-blast-charged fist.

As she scooped up the Soulsword, tossing it as far as she could with Goblin-imbued might: "Sorry, S'yms…that was a fist I owed you…to pay you back for the finger you used to turn me to your filthy ways…"

Madelyne then abruptly quieted as she focused her energies on the other adversaries before her and Alex. The latter was already blasting away at so many devils, taking out some of the reds and greens here and there. Havok did well to dodge N'Astirh as the horselike warlock veered in at him…but the hero was equally as flustered to find that his plasma pulses had no effect on the enemy.

"No, that won't work, my Prince! Believe me," said Mads, as she took to defeating some demons nearby, with concussive force bolts of her own, "I blasted N'Asty a couple of times during a bitch fit or two, before you and I met up last night—you know, kind of like the fairyass tantrums you yourself go and throw, sometimes—anyway, that ponyfucker, he just reconstitutes when you shoot him! We'll have to figure out some other way!"

Alex nodded, and groaned a bit as he realized that for all the nemeses he neutralized with his energy shots…there were just more pouring in by the second, possibly from…

…from the portal that just reopened, courtesy of Crotus, that bastardly baseness who found the loophole allowing for Madelyne's sacrifice to replace that of the babies—and who also had recovered the very vorpal blade that the Queen threw away just a minute previous.

The Prince looked across the barren battlefield, to his lady…and she glanced back, between demon disposals, giving a wistful nod, each knowing what he and she would have to do now.

If the two of them couldn't beat the tide of terror washing over them…they would have to at least deny them the achievement of their execrable objective.

Madelyne and Alex both knew that at this point, to get out of dodge…each would have to engage the rage.

First Alex, splaying his arms out and crossing his eyes, "Hey, I'm everyone's sought-after goofy-ass Goblin Majesty! I'm wearing nothing but window curtains, galoshes, granny panties, and the gold medal I won in the Whore-Racing event at the '84 Olympics!"

Hey, he was improvising.

But in any case, it was working. Across from him, Madelyne was purpling out in a deeper shade than S'ym could ever s'ymulate, she building herself up into a righteous rage—and like the Machine's Green Goliath, she grew in power the angrier she became.

As was the case with Alex also.

Mads ripped off a small iota of her cloak, and fitted it over her head a second. As she gritted in her fury, "HURR I'm Havok! I wear a life-sized black body condom with a shattered colander on my head for a costume!"

In response, Alex once again, building up energy in his signature concentric plasma circles all the while: "I'M THE QUEASIEST QUEEN THERE IS! I'M NOT ONLY LIVING IN JEAN GREY'S SHADOW…I'M THE SHADOW ITSELF, AS SECOND-BEST AS I AM TO HER! NOT ONLY THAT…EVEN MY NAME IS A HAND-ME-DOWN, FROM THE LEAD VOCALIST OF A SECOND-RATE ROCK BAND FROM DECADES AGO!

(NB: Look up "Steeleye Span" on the internets sometime; you'll see what Alex means here. –Q42).

As Madelyne fulfilled the quintessence of her first name's first syllable, with an overwealth of choler: "I AM THE QUEEN, INDEED! AND AN UNDERSERVED ONE…AS, IN ANY OTHER REALITY, I WOULD HAVE TORRID AFFAIRS WITH WORTHY, CONAN-ICAL, JASON MOMOA MOFOS, VIRTUAL HULKING HUNKS OF MEN…BUT INSTEAD HERE, I HAVE TO SETTLE FOR NOTHING BUT IMPOTENT PUTZY SUMMERS BROTHERS!"

The Momoa-Conan reference was a quarter-century into the future for the lady…but her Goblin abilities made her just that prescient.

It was as Crotus handed the Soulsword back over to S'ym, and as the latter began a destructive, damning swing at the heads of both Madelyne and Alex, both close together now, that the human heroes dropped down abruptly, each essentially limboing under the arc of the baneful blade's swing…

…just as Prince pointed his hands to Queen, and she her mitts in turn right back at him, one focusing a powerful, pulsating blast that not only fired out and disintegrated the other, and the other in turn to the one…

…but also flared out into a humongous dual sphere of auric that consumed the entirety of the contingency existent upon that perilous plane, the wasteland containing nothing but crumbs of crappy Crotus and his brethren thereafter.

ENDING ONE: HAPPILY NETHER AFTER

In one reality, Alex and Madelyne's respective souls found one another in the afterlife, specifically in that other punitive middle ground known as Purgatory. Because each had to wrestle with so much rage in life, with Havok's oftentimes-flaring temper per se, and Maddy's understandable anger at all the turbulent turns of events in her existence…both of these heroes had to spend a considerable amount of time ironing out their essences on what was known to many as the Terrace of Anger.

In time, each would come to terms with his and with her frustrations, and both Alexander and Madelyne would be reunited even more fully in Paradise, with here each becoming the other's main squeeze in Heaven. Mads would come to forgive Scott in time as well, and even spend some time intimately with the man, just as Alex would with Lorna in turn…but, as with the "Open Ended Relationship" ending in this author's Amends in the Abyss story (shameless plug for that tale, admittedly), in this reality the primary commitment for the Prince would be his Queen, and vice versa.

THE END

ENDING (?) TWO: RESTORATION OF THE PRINCE FOR A PRICE

In another reality, Alex awakens of a sudden, in a grand, gilded hall.

For a moment or two, he finds that he is alone. In the distance, he can hear what sounds like the lusty cries of great warrior maidens.

Then a huge door heaves open from the side of the chamber he occupies. In stroll two very tall figures, one of whom he recognizes right away.

It is his Queen—though correction, it apparently does not appear to be his Queen anymore. Madelyne wears gaudy garments the colors of carnation and chrome.

"Alex…" she begins, her lover shocked to see her tenderly towering over him by at least three feet now. "I'm…I'm so sorry, my love…but in order for us to exist again…I had to agree to it…"

The younger Summers looks over, at the jesterlike jerkoff standing next to his woman, the "man" decked out in gold and green, and like Mads now, he standing about ten or more feet in stature.

Havok's lady, once more: "I had to agree to be his bride, and to go, again…from Madelyne…

"…to _Anodyne._"

Then Alex looked to the terrible trickster, who apparently plucked the two heroes from their place in Limbo, here just before they self-destructed. It was the one who initially gave the healing powers to Madelyne Pryor, back during an Xers and Alpha Flight two-off adventure. It was the Lord of Lies himself, at least for all the people whose asses lay in Asgard…

_Loki._

…

…and not even, like, the somewhat handsome, mulleted "godspousing"-prone Hiddleston Loki—this was the old school, pointy-faced, pantywaist Loki!

Alex groaned anew, wondering how he could rescue himself and Madelyne from this predicament. As it would turn out, now, in light of the identity of their arch-nemesis now, as well as that same identity of the last guy in an infamous Capcom sequel (at least in the English-language versions of said sequel)…the Prince and his Queen just went from living out Ghosts N' Goblins, to Ghouls N' Ghosts, quite proper.

THIS REALITY TO BE CONTINUED, IN ANOTHER SEPARATE STORY, SOME MONTHS FROM NOW…


End file.
